The roller coaster continues

Gabbie got her braces last week. At first she didn't like them. But she doesn't like anything on her feet anyway. She spends a lot of time trying to remove shoes and socks whenever she can, so it was no surprise that she was going to try to remove the braces too. But the velcro is strong and goes around, so she hasn't figured it out yet. She doesn't seem too bothered by the braces, though - at least not any more than she is bothered by regular shoes. She is still crawling and doing everything she was doing before them. She tends to curl her toes and push the feet upward, and it defeats the purpose of the braces if she is trying to pull her feet up, so we needed to find shoes to go over the braces to pull the toes down, since the velcro part does not go all the way to the toes.

 We literally spent hours looking for shoes, going in every single store and department store at the mall, trying many pairs on, and still have not found one that fits perfectly. We bought a couple of pairs that will do for now, but eventually we will need to buy the hatchbacks that are made for that purpose. They are expensive ($60-70) and they wouldn't be ready before our holiday trip, so we decided to wait for when we come back.

Then yesterday we had the appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. He is a very nice doctor, very personal, very caring. He said that just by reading her files, he thought her condition was much worse, and he was very pleased with what he saw. He said it is not bad at all, but remember - he sees a lot of stuff, so not being bad at all may not mean really that. It just means that, putting in perspective, it could be much worse. He said that she has some flexibility in her feet, and with this condition, it was at its absolutely worse at birth, and that it is not going to get any worse, it will just improve from now. The level of improvement is what is still up in the air. It will depend on how much Gabbie will be able to do in the coming months and years. He doesn't want to rush into surgery because he believes she will stretch much of the contractures herself when she tries to stand and walk. Just like the doctor at Shriners, he believes that the brain commands these things, and since her brain is normal, she should be able to get up and try. And by trying, she will be stretching. And in the future, whatever she can't stretch, then maybe we will think about surgeries. It is a roller coaster. Not only of emotions, but of medical opinions. Every time we see a different doctor, we hear something different. First we hear "be ready for surgeries, she will need many of them and lots of physical therapy", now we hear different. We want to believe in this so badly that we are afraid of believing just to hear something different next month. I want to be able to run in the steady part of the roller coaster for a while. I want to believe that everything will be ok and soon. I want to believe that next year she will be walking. But I can't. Because part of me wants to be ready for the possibility that it doesn't happen that way. Because the more ready I am, the more I can help her. So call me a pessimist, but those of you who know me well, know that I have always been the Pollyanna, I have always been the one to see the bright side of things, but now it hit home too close. So I am hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, like that feeling that you have when you are going up on the roller coaster, but you know that it will go down at some point, you just don't know how soon or how bad, and then hopefully it is just a bump and the ride ends. 

Arthrogryposis

Arthrogry...whatsis?????? Yes, we finally got a diagnosis on Gabbie's condition. This month has been a very busy one for her with doctor appointments. It started with her appointment at Shriners. We had such high hopes for that, as I mentioned on the previous post, but nothing... Then we had a very good appointment with her physical therapist at Kaiser, who said we should take matters into our own hands and fight for what we want. She helped us by getting an appointment with an orthotist to get his opinion on bracing. We went there and the orthotist said he thought we needed to brace her feet now, that he was particularly worried with the right foot. The same day he got the measurements and was going to send it through Kaiser for approval. We got that feeling that we were finally moving forward!

Then we had her 12 month appointment with her pediatrician. It was a tough one because she got 6 vaccines (3 on each leg) on that appointment, but many positives came out of it. We discussed genetic testing with him, and he was all for it. In fact, truth be told, he wanted genetic testing done 10 months ago, but at that point he wanted to rule out spina bifida, which we already knew wasn't the case. So he put the referral for the genetics department immediately and on the same day we were already taking her to the lab to get blood for the tests (poor thing... on top of the 6 shots and ON her birthday). She was a trooper! We also got a referral to an orthopedist and a nutritionist, since her weight gain is very poor.

The appointment with the orthopedist was uneventful, pretty much she just told us that she thinks Gabbie will need surgeries soon to release the tendons on her feet, and referred us to the surgeon (appointment next week) to get his opinion.

The appointment with the geneticist was great. Both the geneticist and the counselor are awesome doctors, and listened to us and discussed her condition for one hour! We felt like they were treating us very fairly, and that they were really listening. They diagnosed her condition as mild arthrogryposis. In her case, it only affected her legs, with mild contractures on the knees and tight ones in her feet. It is actually much more prevalent than we thought - 1 in 3,000 babies. Doctors were very positive, and believe that Gabbie will be able to have a close to normal life and even run a marathon in her 20s if she wants to. We were so happy to hear all that. But then we got home and started researching about this condition and looking at the information online brought us to tears. Reading about it was disheartening, it was like it brought a whole new level of reality to us. I cried - a lot. My husband couldn't talk about it for 3 days. I know that we are very blessed, she is my perfect baby, but it is always difficult to hear, and see, and read. I think that deep down, while we didn't have a diagnosis, we still believed that it could be positional, and that, with time, it would go away and she would overcome all this. Well, I still believe she will overcome whatever is on her way, but now we know that she will need a lot of help. She will need a series of surgeries for many years, intensive physical therapy, and all the help we can give her to increase her range of motion.

I know that the best we can do for her is to stay positive, learn as much as we can and give her all our love. She has a tough road ahead of her, but she surely already showed us that she has the right personality to overcome all this. Tomorrow she will get her first pair of braces, and I am scared, and stressed! But we know she will take all this like a pro! I just don't know how mommy and daddy will take it...

And we have a crawler!

Yes, I know, that's what babies do!!! But if you have read my previous posts you know that our Gabbie has had her share of struggles in that department. Crawling is difficult for her because of the position of her feet, or more specifically because she can't flex them, so it may really hurt to crawl. But she finally realized that crawling is more effective than dragging her body on the floor. The first day we saw her doing that was in the first days of October, so a little before 11 months. My husband and I kept staring at each other, as if not believing what we were watching. It may seem very silly but we both had tears in our eyes, we realized we were both crying, it was a very emotional moment. It is interesting how we take certain things for granted and then we realize that they are not granted, we did not know until that moment if she was ever going to be able to crawl. Babies can't exactly tell us these things, and as the doctor at Shriners told us in the last appointment, it was up to her now, there is no way to know what she will be capable of. Then the next days she decided she didn't want to do it any more. But a couple of days later she tried again and now she goes everywhere crawling. This picture was taken at Halloween (wasn't she a cute little duck?). Notice the position of the foot when she crawls.

 Once in a while she still tries the army crawling/dragging crawl, but she know it is better the "right" way. And now she is trying to stand. She still has no strength at all on the lower legs, so technically she can't, but she wants to. We thought timing was great because we would have our next appointment at Shriners the following weeks. The doctor had said that once she is trying to stand, he would give her braces, to force the feet down a little more and give her some leg support. We had such high hopes that she was ready for that, and that the following week we would be getting them. But then the day for the appointment came and I was so nervous! We had to wait for so long. We finally saw the doctor, and unfortunately he didn't tell us anything different than what he had told us 3 months before. Now he said to wait until she is 18 months, because technically babies usually walk anywhere between 9 and 16 months, so she is still within that range. I was so frustrated!!!! She is trying so hard! And she is getting frustrated too, because now she is more aware of things and gets frustrated. We left that appointment so sad, so many questions that no one can answer for us. They want to do another EMG, this time on the quadriceps, because they think they are equally weak. We will go back in 3 months for that but they won't see her for braces for another 6 months. This wait is horrible!

In addition, we have been doing a lot of research, trying to find out what is wrong, what caused that on her. As the doctor at Shriners said, she is a normal baby from the waist up. He said he has to treat her as a spina bifida baby, but she is not. So what is it? We came across some rare chromosomal deletions, specifically one called 10q26, and the more we read about it, the more we think it may be a possibility, so we asked the doctor at Shriners to test for it, and his answer was "your baby is normal, she does not have a genetic condition". What doctors sometimes fail to recognize is that depending on where in the leg of the chromosome the breakage is, symptoms can be very mild, and sometimes adults don't even know they have it. But we haven't lost our hopes yet. We will try to talk to her pediatrician on her 12 month appointment and see if he will do it!

Other than that, she continues to be the happiest baby I know, always smiling, very playful, just a happy kid, which also bring tears to my eyes every time I say or write about that, because that in itself is a lesson for us. She only gets upset for a very short period of time, and forgets about it quickly. What a happy baby!

What do you mean "you don't know" ? We have to wait again?

We finally had our appointment back at Shriner's after the MRI. We received good and bad news. The good news is the MRI of both the brain and spinal cord were normal, they did not find anything wrong. That was a relief because it means she has no neurological developmental damage in that sense, but now we are back at stage zero again. WHAT IS WRONG THEN?????? Here is her latest picture.  Her feet are still very dorsiflexed, and the doctors now believe that she has some congenital absence of some anterior horn cells, which gives it a pattern similar to what they sometimes see in cases of arthrogryposis. Not very reassuring... But the doctor said that more than a leg function, walking is pretty much a brain decision. She needs to decide that she is going to try to stand up. That life will be more interesting that way. For now, she is very comfortable commando-crawling everywhere. She still hasn't sat up by herself, so she is very delayed developmentally at least in the physical part. We need to wait for her to decide to do these things before we can proceed. Then they will try to do serial casting again to try to bring the feet down a little more so that she doesn't walk on her heels, and then , when she is much older, they think she will need surgery on her legs/feet to do a surgical release and transfer of the anterior ankle moving one of the muscles to the calcaneus. In summary, we have a rough road ahead of us, but it was certainly a relief to hear that her brain and spinal cord are normal. But now we wait again, this time we wait for Gabbie to decide to sit up, stand up, etc. Only then we can move to our next steps in this journey.

Done with the scary MRI but now we wait again

This Monday Gabbie finally went for her scheduled MRI. It has been a difficult process to navigate the bureaucracy of both Shriner's and Kaiser to finally have it scheduled for 1 month after the consultation, not within 1 to 2 weeks as requested by the doctor. But it is done now and it was a very scary process. First because babies need to be under general anesthesia for the procedure, because they need to be completely still. Well, the thought of having our 8 month old under general anesthesia was easy to swallow, but we knew that we were doing it for a good cause, she really needed it. But we had no idea that they would just take her away from us right there at the waiting room, and would only call us back when everything was done. When my son needed a CT scan years ago, he was around 6 years old, and I was with him through most of it. I was there when they put the IV on his hand, when he started to feel groggy, and then they took him in for the scan. But apparently with babies, they just take them. Maybe because parents are usually not the most helpful creatures when it comes to their babies and medical procedures... but we were expecting to be by her through most of it. No, we had her taken away still smiling at us, and then 1 hour and 40 minutes later they called us back to go to the recovery room with her. Those were the worse 100 minutes since she was born. Every beep or every announcement for all the different "codes" they use, you think it is about your kid. We would hear "Emergency, code 27, operating room", and we would think it was her. We would hear "Code 4, building 1" and we would think it was her, even though we had no idea if we were in building 1". 

So, after the wait we finally see her, and she has all this wires and tubes, and she immediately starts to wake up. She is so cute. She was trying to open her eyes, she saw me, and was trying to smile and say "na-na", which seems to be her favorite thing to say, and I like to believe it refers to me. She was a trooper! Never cried, not even when she was taken from us into a cold room full of people she had never seen before. No crying when she woke up either. Just smiles. She was trying to roll over as soon as she opened her eyes, and it was funny to watch the nurse try to disconnect all wires that she was getting tangled in, and then Gabbie removed the oxygen tubes from her nose herself. She was determined to be free from all that stuff. Before she could do any more "damage", the nurse picked her up and gave her to me. 

She was so sweet, every time she looked at me, she tried a smile. The nurse then gave me a bottle of water to give her, and then apple juice. She drank them really fast, she was hungry, not being able to eat since the previous day. Then it was already time to go home. She slept half the time, and was a little nauseated when we were home that afternoon. But I think the only bad thing that she really remembers from the whole experience was removing the earrings (which can be very difficult if you never removed them before) and then putting them back on! LOL Now every time that I touch her ears, she looks at me like "you are not doing that again, are you?".

So now we wait again. Images are ready, Kaiser was actually very fast in getting a CD ready for me. We have an appointment next week at Shriner's and we will see what our next steps are. Keep your fingers crossed for us and of course your prayers are always welcome!

Eating keeps her busy

Gabbie has never been a good eater. She doesn't really enjoy her bottles, but who would???? That Nutramigen tastes really bad, believe me, I tried! And smells really bad too! I wouldn't want that either, I can't blame her.

But she likes to eat her baby food. She does not like the ones in the little jars, but loves the pouches. The consistency in the pouches seems to be different, not so liquid, and she prefers them that way. Carrots are the absolute favorite! But she also likes some others that I am too afraid to taste after the experience with the Nutramigen. If they taste like they look, I don't want to try that! But even with the ones she likes, she is not like my other kids were with food. She takes her time, doesn't seem too eager to eat. Then we discovered finger foods. I thought she was too young to introduce real finger food, except for apples, that I let her suck and just pay attention so that she doesn't get a small piece. Well, she is only 7 months, but I went to the store to find something I could give her, and we decided to try the puffs anyway. She loves them!!!

They were not around 13 and 15 years ago when I had the other kids, so I had no idea that they actually dissolve in her mouth and she doesn't choke. So now, when we are having dinner, we just put her in the high chair next to us so she can also participate, and give her puffs. That keeps her busy and we can always have a nice family dinner. That has also helped with her coordination. She seems to be doing great at that! Watching her reach these little milestones is great, it makes us forget for a while that some milestones will be very difficult to reach, and that we have a rough path ahead of us!

Follow your instincts

Yesterday we had the second appointment at Shriner's. Gabbie had a EMG done, and when the doctor told me it was a simple surface EMG and I had nothing to worry about, I believed. Well, nobody told me that involved having a huge needle inserted in my daughter's legs without any numbing medication, with me holding her while she was screaming and looking at me with those eyes, as if saying "why are you letting them do this to me?". After that came the worse part - to listen to what the doctor had o say. The doctors have determined that she has an abnormality somewhere in her spinal chord. It may be tethered, or it may be something else. Whatever it is, is incomplete, because she is able to move her legs, but the muscles are very weak. The next step is a MRI, and she has to be under anesthesia for that. The doctors want it done as soon as possible, to determine the need for surgery, and with every neurological disorder, the sooner the better. So now we wait again, this time for an appointment for a MRI with Kaiser. We are very worried, we asked about prognosis, and they don't want to say much without first seeing what the problem and where in her spinal chord it is. As for her development, she is getting better at supporting herself sitting, now she can do it for a few seconds before falling over. She cannot bear any weight on her legs, so there is no attempt to support her weight when we hold her under her arms. But other than that, she seems a very happy normal baby.

Gabbie a couple of weeks ago. Look at her foot and how different it looks - and the doctor continues to say it is normal?

So you can imagine how scared we are, but we are specially frustrated, because I have been talking to her pediatrician and podiatrist about this for months. They always dismissed it, especially the pedi, saying that I had nothing to be worried about, that she would eventually reach her milestones, that I couldn't compare babies, etc. How can they say that? How can they be so dismissive of what we are trying to say? They see them for less than 10 minutes every 2 or 3 months, how can they know more than parents that see the baby every day? I had to beg her pedi to send the referral to Shriner's because he never sent us to see a specialist. Maybe if we had seen one when she was even younger, the prognosis would have been different. I am so angry with the system right now. Why doctors always assume that we are a bunch of stupid parents that just whine and don't know what we are talking about?

Putting everything in perspective

On Friday we had our appointment at Shriner’s. We got there and were immediately seen by the Chief of Orthopedic Surgery of a very renowned hospital/medical college. We thought we would have all of our questions answered, but it is never the way we want it to be… Everyone there was very nice to us. The doctor sent us to X-ray, and he was sure the diagnosis was going to be one of 2: either talipes calcaneus valgus, which is positional and not a big deal; or some sort of congenital calcaneus defect, which I can’t remember the name. This is a picture of how the feet and legs looked like when she was born.Sorry it is upside down, but I still haven't figured out how to turn them!

After the x-ray, the doctor told us that it was not the congenital defect, which was a relief, but he also said it was not a simple talipes calcaneus valgus, because he would expect it to be better by now if that was the case. He also mentioned that she has no Babinski reflex, and she fails to curl her toes when they stimulate a reflex. That led him to believe that the problem may be neurological. Somewhere the nerves that attach to the muscles of her leg/feet and the muscles themselves are failing to communicate. The next step would be a MRI to check for any abnormalities in her spinal chord, but the doctor does not recommend it right now, because she would have to be sedated. Next week we will go there again for a EMG, electromyography, to see how her leg muscles respond to stimuli. But for now, we came back home with more questions than we had when we first arrived at Shriner’s. It did give us some validation that we are not crazy and that there seems to be something wrong even though the pediatrician never really thought so. We asked the doctor if all the potential diagnostics he mention were treatable, and his answer was unsettling: “some of them are…”. We are trying not to worry and to hope for the best but it is not very reassuring when the specialist of the specialists says he doesn’t know what is wrong with your baby.

But one thing Shriner’s did for us very well – it showed us that we need to put things in perspective. We all live our lives thinking that our problems are so big! Just sitting at the clinic’s waiting room will show you that your problems are so small! Those kids and their parents should receive a medal! To see the smile on some of those kids face, to see how brave they are, and their parents are, that will teach you a lesson and bring tears to your eyes! Our trip to Shriner’s was very emotional to me.

Then today I learn about the baby of a friend, who was born some weeks before Gabbie. I had not heard from her at all since the baby was born, and I thought it was strange, but with a toddler and a newborn, I thought she was just busy. Well, she has been very busy, her baby has a very rare disease and has all sorts of problems, from vision and hearing impairments, to a heart defect, to mental problems. My thoughts go to her and her baby, and all prayers are appreciated, I am sure. Right now I feel so small, and my problems seem so small too. Gabbie is a happy healthy baby, and I will do my best to get my answers. She will get better and hopefully she will walk when she grows up. But if that is all we have to deal with, I am the lucky parent. I am so grateful that she is a normal, healthy, happy and in so many ways, perfect baby!

Waiting for an appointment

We finally convinced her pediatrician to refer us to Shriner's hospital so that a specialist can take a look at her legs and feet. We are very concerned with the total lack of muscle tone and the position of feet and legs, and of course, the clubbed feet. We really like her podiatrist but at this point we need to hear what is going on and what is ahead of us from a real specialist. After the referral, I got a phone call from Shriner's and they asked me to send all of her medical records for their evaluation. I also added some pictures we took, because pictures can give a much better idea of what we are trying to say. In 2 weeks we got a paper in the mail assigning a day and time for her initial consultation in another 2 weeks. So the whole process took 1 month, which is not bad, but it has been an excruciating month just waiting and waiting... The appointment is tomorrow, and we can't wait!

Meanwhile, the daycare director arranged for a consultant to go there and take a look at Gabbie and suggest ways to help her develop. At 6 months she had not rolled over yet, and the lack of muscle tone and movement of legs seemed to be interfering with a lot of her developmental milestones. It was great! They gave us a series of exercises to do with her, and showed the teachers how to hold her and help her. In 10 days she was already rolling over both ways and now we can't stop her, she goes everywhere by rolling over, and is much more active and mobile! I am very thankful for the caring teachers at Childtime! They were the ones that made it happen, their support and encouragement along the way has been amazing!

Well, I know I promised to post more pictures, but as the title of the blog says, I have just been very busy. And I also need to start posting more about the other busy part of my life, the older kids! They are starting to get jealous, but Luiza, my 13 year old daughter, said to me that I am too old to keep a blog!!!!!! She was laughing when I told them about the blog, like it was something really absurd! Oh well, I will show her...

I will start including them more, but for now, here are Gabbie's 6-month pics:

Sorry but for some reason all my pictures now are sideways even when the original file is not... Not sure how to fix that! Send suggestions please!

I will post back as soon as we have more news after her Shriner's appointment!

Daycare pictures

We saw the proofs yesterday, and all the pictures look sooooooo cute, I couldn't resist! I HAD TO purchase them! I guess that's what they count on, on parents being suckers when it comes to cute pictures of their kids!!! I haven't received the CD with the originals yet, so I took a picture of the picture with my phone, and ... isn't she ADORABLE?

Pictures

Gabbie (we actually call her Gabi, which is the nickname in Portuguese) is growing too fast! We try to enjoy every little moment we have with her, but they go so fast! Now that she is 5 months old, we want to be able to record the monthly milestones, but I couldn't just start from 5. So I decided to go back and post a picture for the past 4 months too. Here we go:

She was born on Nov 11. Very cool, because she will turn 1 on 11/11/11! And, she was also born at 8:11am, so I guess her lucky number is 11. As I mentioned in the previous post, her legs and feet were very different, all positional, so even dressing her was difficult. And holding her was difficult too. Here is Gabi at 1 month:

2 months:

3 months:

 3 months with casts on:

And finally 4 months: 

Ok, now that we got all that "out of the way", I can start posting about her milestones starting at 5 months! Why didn't I start the blog sooner?????
Now that she is 5 months, we are starting to worry about some little things. Well, at least I am, my husband says he is not worried at all. She hasn't turned from belly to back yet. First, because she HATES being on her belly. But I think it is also because she hasn't had much tummy time before, when she had the casts on. She does not move her legs as much as I see other babies her age do. Again, maybe because of the same reason. She has excellent neck support, but when she is on he tummy, she just cries with frustration.
Her reflux also has not improved. Don't get me wrong, it is MUCH better than before the medicine, but many times she spits up and we have no idea what we did different to cause that. It is a problem in the busy mornings -  I have to give her the medicine (which tastes horrible), wait for 30 minutes (with her crying hungry), and then feed her, wait at least 30 minutes more before I can even change a diaper or put her in the car seat. I've been trying to give her the medicine when she is still asleep, so that she will sleep through the next 30 minutes instead of waking up and realizing she is hungry, that works much better.

We also started solids before she was 4 months in the hope that it would stay down better than the bottle. She is not a very good eater, she eats it but not like my other kids, who wouldn't even give me enough time to get another spoon before "asking" for more. But she is getting there! Yesterday she ate one entire little jar of baby food  for the first time. I will start making my own baby food soon (I hope), maybe she will like that better :-)

Today we get the 5 month professional pics she took at daycare back, I will post them tomorrow.

By the third baby you think you know it all! Well, not really...

It took us a while to get pregnant this time. We were all (including the older kids) looking so much forward to it! Gabbie was born on November 11, much smaller than my other two kids had been, and by C-section because she was breech. Due to her position in my uterus, she couldn't straighten up her legs at first and her feet were also different, turned upwards in the direction of the leg. All because of the position she was in for so many weeks. The doctors told us she would need a lot of massage to bring them to the normal position. We brought her home less than 48 hours after the C-section. We thought we knew it all. It was our third one, we had to know it all!!! And Gabbie was determined to prove us wrong!

First we started noticing that she was spitting up a lot, even breast milk. And it seemed to burn her throat, she would jerk her body back and cry. She was diagnosed as having allergy and reflux disease.  I had to stop breastfeeding and we had to put her on the most expensive formula ever! Not only it is expensive (about $300 a month) but it stinks! At first she was on Zantac, then changed to Prilosec. She did better with that, at least she wasn't so much in pain anymore, but still spits out (a lot less) once in a while. We also had to add cereal to her bottles, after we had tried everything with no success. The doctor was reluctant at first, but then he gave us the "go ahead" and it works much better. It may not work for every reflux case, but it sure works for her.

Then there were the legs and feet. Massage and physical therapy were not enough, and the doctor decided to put her in casts for almost a month. Every week we had to go there, they removed the old one and put a new one on her, forcing the feet a little more. It was difficult to watch! She cried so much. I don't think she was in pain, but she was scared, and would look at us with those eyes "saying" "why are you letting them do this to me?".

After a month, this is how they look now. Not perfect yet, but we believe that when she starts trying to use them more, they will improve in terms of flexibility.

Anyway, she is perfect to us! She's been through a lot already, but sometimes I hear so many stories of other babies going through so much worse, I thank God that this is all she's had. We are very grateful for our baby. We wouldn't have it any other way!!!!!!

But now we know that it doesn't matter how many times you go through this, YOU NEVER KNOW IT ALL. There is always something different, they are all different! And she is teaching us something different every day!

Starting this blog

Well, I hope you enjoy following our journey. I am a very busy mom nowadays - but I will still find time to update this blog once in a while! Our story is very special, because we were a happy family of 4 for many years and now we became 5. Yes, very much planned. That is the first question I get asked every time!

We have 2 older kids, our son is 15 now, and our daughter is 13. I guess they have always been such good kids that we decided to have another baby after all this time. Many people did not (and still don't) understand why. But we have always wanted more. And the truth is that I have always felt like they grew up too fast, both my husband and I were in grad school with 2 toddlers, and I felt like we never truly "stopped and smelled the roses". Looking at our photo albums you see that this is not true, we always "lived for them". We did everything as a family, always together, They even participated in our research projects, "helping" collect data. But we wanted more. So Gabriella was born last November, she will be 5 months old soon, and I decided to create this blog to tell about our story and keep friends and family up to date on everything that goes on.

So, enjoy, follow me, write comments, ask questions, do whatever you want (within reason!).